Faith Schuster from the BAJC

If you were to ask almost anyone from the Brattleboro Area Jewish Community what the West Village Meeting House means to them, they’ll probably say “It’s our home away from home—where we gather for the high holy days and other services and events when our synagogue is too small for us.” 

That’s true, of course, but West Village is more to us than an alternative spiritual place.  For over a decade, West Village was our home — the  home  where we could gather for Shabbat services on Saturdays, for Hebrew school classes on Thursdays, for holiday celebrations, for potluck dinners to welcome the Sabbath on a Friday evening, for fun events.  Our prayer books and our holy ark and Torah scroll resided safely in the building and were always treated with respect.  We built a sukkah in front of the building each fall,  the surrounding trees  providing us with branches and limbs and leaves.  We  have celebrated a generation of bar mitzvahs and bat mitzvahs,  many with rousing parties following the religious service. Over the years

Our two religious communities have shared the same space respectfully and cooperatively, with our  spiritual leaders supporting each other and sharing similar missions as friends and colleagues.  It is with warm feeling that we continue to come home to West Village for community gatherings.

If you have a memory about the West Village Meeting House that you would like to share, please tell us about it in the “Reply” section below.